Narcissists: Eating Well but Taking Risks

April 9, 2015 5:05 PM

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If you’re shopping for a personality disorder to call your own, you might want to avoid becoming a narcissist. It’s true that you’ll be confident, charismatic, extroverted and irresistible, but only until people discover that you’re also arrogant, self-absorbed, insensitive and unlovable. Now, one more contradiction in the narcissistic personality has been revealed. Even as narcissists take better care of themselves than non-narcissists do—eating well and exercising regularly—they’re also likelier to engage in risky behaviors that could kill them before they can take advantage of those good habits.

That’s the conclusion of a new study by psychologist Erin Hill of West Chester University in Pennsylvania. Like most researchers studying narcissism, Hill knew there is much more nuance to the disorder than there seems to be. Narcissists are cocky, yes, but they’re hungry too—for recognition, applau...